Create a Custom Trait - Sims 4 - Zerbu's Mod Constructor V4 Tutorial

Zerbu's Mod Constructor V4 is a powerful tool for Sims 4 that can be used to create custom traits for Sims in CAS, lot traits, aspirations and more. In this video tutorial, I'll be walking you through very basic trait creation for Sims (or cats, or dogs - you have the power!) with step-by-step instructions:

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It sounds like you’re skipping over the “Add Component” portion explained in the text instructions. Everything, once you go into the core trait buff by opening value element is added with add component for the major categories - buffs, statistic modifiers, etc.

how can i add to my sim an emotion after sleep ? make them feel secure after an A.I actualization (well really ,i need a tutorial to recreate the hybrids robots mod. everything about hybrids robots mod exept for the fact that this robots doesn't have problems with the water and they have more interactions . i want to make 2 kind of robots the first group are the Alphas robots who have the mind control and emotional control ability over other sims by singing "Dye Music" but if they listen "jellyfish song" (from from the another type of robot ex Alpha) after a time frame they will die by overloading their processors but they can become alive by sending them to repair sims who listen Dye Music needs to listen jellyfish song to come back to normal again some specific sims who have a certain trait (mind control without sing with more features than robots) can resist the Dye Music but they will suffer an horrible headche until they listen jellyfish song (they fall asleep the ex Alpha has such a beautiful voice and it's so calming that makes every sim fall asleep and after wake up the sim who has llistened jellyfish song feels energized and gives some friendship points ) if the ex Alpha don't fight with the singing alpha to stop it from singing or the resisting sim who have the headche doesn't run to another place (only if it's posible because your sim is so tense like when they are being burned they no always obey your orders to extinct the fire in this situation is the same it's like they could not think in the moment acording to the strong headche ) could die by listening Dye Music from a very long time. i want to do this mods but i need someone to help me to understand how cai i make this mods since i dont' know what i'm doing when i'm tryin to create the mods with the program i don't know how it works just only one basic funtion but i need to know more please can someone help me ?

As a suggestion, I know you see an end goal of the traits you want to make but you say yourself that you don’t know what you’re really doing. While everything you want may not be possible (mind control and repair might be good examples, at least the way you describe them) a lot of how I learned MC4 was through practice and trial and error. So I honestly suggest you start small and work your way up in complexity. This gives you the chance to work with the program as you go and learn what you can do, can’t do and potential workarounds to get close to your goals, even if you can’t do them exactly the way you first thought.

You asked at the beginning of the post about how to give your Sim an emotion after sleeping. That is a good, and basic, starting point and is covered by the tutorial with Continuous Loots. There are several test conditions you can add - multiple ways to test for sleep - either with running interactions or buff checks, for example.

Once you get that working, I would focus on other aspects of the trait that are not so heavily reliant on a second trait on another Sim because if you’ll notice, there isn’t a lot of trait interaction in the base game really, beyond evil/good. That’s because you can’t assume the second Sim with the other trait will always be around and the trait should have compelling gameplay in and of itself. What makes AI #1 unique? Does it learn faster or slower? What does it learn faster or slower? What will make it happy? What will make it sad or angry? As a robot, will it need to eat? These are all things you can change/modify/make moodlets for as you go along. Writing a good AI trait should be the first goal. Then, once that’s been fleshed out, you’d work on creating AI trait #2 - which should be different from AI #1. Only then, when they are complete but separate entities should you begin to worry about how they interact with one another.

thank you i allready tried to follow all the steps about continous Loots but i'm not shure how can i make the sim feel the emotion after sleep and no when the sim is sleeping i hope in the future i could know how the mermaid mode has ben made because they use siren song to make listeners feel flirty and maby i can use the same technique to start with basic things about Dye music (the emotional control only A#1 can sing it ) and Jellyifish song (only curative sleeping makes your sim feel enegized after sleep but nothing more only AI#2can sing it. they can't control people just only help them ). ( the idea of the mods that i want to make was taken from this video on youtube where i can see the robot's pesonalities in there and the video gives me more information too : DramaTical Murder Episode 9 English Dub (sorry it dosen't leave me to poost the links) i want to recreate to recreate part of the final situation on the video when clear finds his brothers using the mask till the end of the video but i dont want to recreate everything it's so tragic i know it will not be perfect but it could be possible to recreate some things . i suggest to start to see it from 1:06 ) and i found information about them to in wikipedia especialy from AI#1 : Alpha | Wiki DRAMAtical Murder | FANDOM powered by Wikia
maby if you have a new idea to suggest me please could you tell me it ? thank you very much

You'd want to run a buff test as part of your Test Conditions. The one you're looking for is:

MoodBuff_Hidden_Asleep

In setting up the moodlet itself, set the emotion weight and duration. Check the "Ignore if the Sim Already Has the Buff" (or you can uncheck it, it probably doesn't matter, although this will likely cause the moodlet itself to blink a bit). As a continuous loot, the trait will be checking every 10 in-game minutes to see if the Sim still has the buff (in this case, whether or not the sim is sleeping), and will stop "refreshing" itself once the Sim wakes up, but the moodlet itself will remain for whatever extra duration there is after the Sim no longer meets the test condition.

Hi, I'm having trouble figuring out how to launch the constructor? I'm using a Mac, and I might just be missing something (please understand that I'm not very good with this kind of thing), but I can't quite figure it out.

Hi, modders! I've downloaded the latest version of Zerbu's Mod Constructor, and I'll admit I'm struggling with creating a trait. The tutorial I have appears to be from an earlier version of the mod, but I'm figuring most of it out...I think. (I've also been trying to follow along with the tutorial in this thread, but what I see in my program and what I see in the tutorial aren't quite the same.)

One thing is definitely not working for me. I can't figure out how to change the trait icon that appears in CAS. What my program shows is a llama-like image (called Missing Image) and a string of text marked as "Default Image". I click on that icon, and it opens up the icon file. I find the icon I want, I double-click on that, but nothing changes. I've even tested it out by quickly exporting the package and going into CAS to see if my trait appears. It does, but with the llama-like icon.

Am I doing something wrong? Am I missing a step somewhere? This is my very first attempt at doing any modding for Sims 4, so I'll take all the advice I can get.

One more question. Is it easier to create traits with Sims 4 Studio? Or do you prefer using Zerbu's mod? I guess what I'm asking is which program would be best for a total noob. Thanks!

ETA: I'm resolving some of my issues by going back and downloading an older version that matches my tutorial. Wish me luck.

This is probably a dumb question, but I’m using Zerbu’s mod constructor to make some custom traits and social interactions, but when I load them into my game, it all works fine until I get to build mode. Somehow my custom traits are crashing build mode and I don’t understand how it’s connected. And I checked, it is my mod causing the problem, not something else. If anyone has any idea what’s happening, tips would really be appreciated.

[quote="peculiarpotato;c-17134055"]This is probably a dumb question, but I’m using Zerbu’s mod constructor to make some custom traits and social interactions, but when I load them into my game, it all works fine until I get to build mode. Somehow my custom traits are crashing build mode and I don’t understand how it’s connected. And I checked, it is my mod causing the problem, not something else. If anyone has any idea what’s happening, tips would really be appreciated.[/quote]

Update: I figured out the issue.
Both the package and the ts4 file must be in the mods folder directly, and not a subfolder.

I've followed this tutorial and it helped me out a lot, however I seem to have stumbled upon a bug.
For some reason, every single one of my "Proximity Buffs" doesn't display a "reason" in game, although I wrote the reason for each of them.
Sorry if this is a silly question, any help is very appreciated. :)

Hey guys! I'm insanely new at modding, but through watching several tutorials and experimenting with Zerbu's mod constructor a bit, I seem to kinda have a handle on it. Emphasis on kinda. I've got adding occasional events down, but for some reason whenever I try to add any other type of buff, it doesn't work. What I mean by that is whenever I load into my game, within a couple real life minutes the occasional buff kicks in for however long I have it set for, along with all the other things I have set for that buff. The problem is whenever I go to do an action that should activate the buff, the buff doesn't activate. Like if I go up to the computer and start playing a game, I don't get any moodlet from it like I should if I was doing the PC gamer mod. If anyone can help me isolate the problem that would be great :)

Some of my favourite traits were broken in the November update, and it seems the creator has abandoned them. I’m wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction for a tutorial on how to edit/update custom traits.

According to Zerbu, all that needs to be done is for creators to re-export their custom traits through Mod Constructor. I am trying to update another creator's traits (for personal use), and maybe even make my own tweaks.

The only tutorials I have found are for making traits from scratch, or fixing them for the Cats and Dogs patch.

So, yeah. Any tips or tutorials for how to update and edit traits made by other people?

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. In your video under core buffs shows a checked box that says Trait Buff, then Reference type with new element selected, and then open value element. But under core buffs for me shows a checked box that says Trait Buff, then reference type with new element selected, then reason with a text line, then name with a text line, then description with a text box, then an option to chose an image, then Open Element:Value which does nothing when I click on it.

Because my program looks different I can't follow your tutorial. Please help. What I really want to do is make aspirations, but I've gotten no where. I thought if I could learn how to make a trait I could figure out aspirations. I did lot traits and holiday traditions super duper easy peasy lemon squeasy.

Hey there! It's a pretty good tutorial and I'd love it if you could maybe cover a few more features of the program in the future!

by the way, I have a question. I'm trying to make some kind of trait like "obsessed lover" and want to add a buff that makes my sim sad when he hasn't interacted with his soulmate for a while. Does anybody know how I can set the condition for that? Thanks in advance! :)

Hi, I'm having trouble figuring out how to launch the constructor? I'm using a Mac, and I might just be missing something (please understand that I'm not very good with this kind of thing), but I can't quite figure it out.

so I'm wondering not sure if anyone could answer this but is there a way to test if the sim with the trait is being kissed etc or some way like that. also if there's if a way to give every sim in the room a buff or something like it.

I suppose the program works fine, the main problem is that the program is enormously complex and there are no tutorials AT ALL. I tried using it a few times and had to give up. I was only able to make the most basic of traits... and even that was mostly accidental.

And from someone who has an extremely high learning curve for figuring things out, that's saying a lot.

@gettps Did you have a look at the most recent CAS trait tutorial? There are also old tutorials that might help with understanding misc stuff, though I think the program now looks different from the V2 tutorials. There is also a Help section in the program that does a basic outline of stuff. It's a bit hard to follow but if you go slowly and think about it, it eventually makes sense. There is also a new career tutorial that someone made sometime in December(maybe?) if it might help, and if you need guidance there is Zerbu's Discord server where they can help explain stuff.

Hey. I need help. Is it possible to not allow certain interactions if making a custom trait? For example if I want to make an Open Relationship Person trait by copying the Player aspiration award and disallowing the sim from using jealous reactions? I cant find a Tutorial to help me with that.

@gettps Did you have a look at the most recent CAS trait tutorial? There are also old tutorials that might help with understanding misc stuff, though I think the program now looks different from the V2 tutorials. There is also a Help section in the program that does a basic outline of stuff. It's a bit hard to follow but if you go slowly and think about it, it eventually makes sense. There is also a new career tutorial that someone made sometime in December(maybe?) if it might help, and if you need guidance there is Zerbu's Discord server where they can help explain stuff.

Where? The website has nothing. Just a download. No tutorials. Nothing. At this point I don't even want to use the program, it hasn't been updated in WELL over a year. It MUST be severely out of date.

And I really don't care for talking to creators. Ask a question about their program and they take it like a personal insult and either start spewing insults or deleting everything you post.

@gettps Did you have a look at the most recent CAS trait tutorial? There are also old tutorials that might help with understanding misc stuff, though I think the program now looks different from the V2 tutorials. There is also a Help section in the program that does a basic outline of stuff. It's a bit hard to follow but if you go slowly and think about it, it eventually makes sense. There is also a new career tutorial that someone made sometime in December(maybe?) if it might help, and if you need guidance there is Zerbu's Discord server where they can help explain stuff.

Where? The website has nothing. Just a download. No tutorials. Nothing. At this point I don't even want to use the program, it hasn't been updated in WELL over a year. It MUST be severely out of date.

And I really don't care for talking to creators. Ask a question about their program and they take it like a personal insult and either start spewing insults or deleting everything you post.

Depends what you mean by updated, new content or fixes? Last it was updated was January 2020 to fix some errors. Last content update was after Island Living I think for the part-time careers.
He does not have tutorials, other people do. The career tutorial is here.

Some, not all. Also, he doesn't answer questions on how to make anything. It's done by other people in the server (Kuttoe is one, I'm sure you've heard of them) who are well aware that the program has issues and limitations.

Depends what you mean by updated, new content or fixes? Last it was updated was January 2020 to fix some errors. Last content update was after Island Living I think for the part-time careers.
He does not have tutorials, other people do. The career tutorial is here.

Some, not all. Also, he doesn't answer questions on how to make anything. It's done by other people in the server (Kuttoe is one, I'm sure you've heard of them) who are well aware that the program has issues and limitations.

Appreciate the link. Tried it out and made a "P*rn Star" career. Just to test it out. Worked like a charm. Tool has a few bugs, and as stated, the tutorial is a little out of date, some things listed in it don't work at all, but I was able to figure it out. It works fairly well.

Still have some things to figure out. The "Promotion Gift" thing wasn't in there but I was able to figure it out. The promotion bonus they documented in the tutorial works, but doesn't show it on the promotion notification. Still need to figure that out. The promotion text messages they list don't work at ALL. So, I just removed all the messages.

It's given me a good base for building things. Just want to figure out how to do the "work-at-home" tasks, if the tool even supports that.